Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain

After one of the recent Democratic debates, I suggested that Barack Obama’s campaign appears well on its way to becoming one of the most intellectually dishonest in recent memory. That was after Obama pledged to combat illegal immigration by helping to fix the Mexican economy, while simultaneously pledging to pull out of NAFTA unless Mexico agrees to U.S. environmental and labor standards.
Now we learn that, while Obama campaigns in Ohio on a platform of renegotiating NAFTA, one of his senior economic advisers is telling Canada that Obama doesn’t really mean it. According to this report from CTV, the adviser (Austan Goolsbee) told the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago that when Senator Obama talks about opting out of the free trade deal, the Canadian government shouldn’t worry because it was just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously. Quizzed on this matter, Goolsbee reportedly refused to say whether he had such a conversation with the Canadian government office in Chicago. He also said he has been told to direct any questions to the campaign headquarters.
Goolsbee, a University of Chicago professor, cannot be passed off as some guy that Obama once had lunch with. He is a Obama’s “lead” economic adviser in the presidential and has been advising Obama since his 2004 Senate campaign.
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